Thursday, October 1, 2015

INTERVIEW: Cat Grant plus #Giveaway! #Bi #Newadult

Hello Cat and welcome to The Hat Party <3 Thank you so much for subjecting yourself to
the RANDOMNESS that is a Raine O'Tierney interview! Please don your best hat,
and let's get this party started!

If you could go back and speak to your 13-year-old self,
what would you say?

Hang in there, kid.
You WILL be a professional writer someday.

If someone challenged you to a water-gun fight *to the
death* how would you fare?

I’d melt into a
puddle of goo, like the Wicked Witch of the West.

What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned as an author?

No matter how hard
you try, not everyone will love your work. Some may even bash you for parts of
your story you thought you nailed. None of this matters. Lick your wounds in
private and get back to work.

A genre-specific virus has attacked you, rendering
you INCAPABLE of writing your chosen genre. What do you do now?!

I cry
in my beer, wallow in my despair, then get back to work.

What advice do you have for an author that may have
stumbled on their path?

I stumble all the
time. In fact, I just lost six months of my life to a black pit of depression
that told me every word I wrote was crap. Climbing out of that pit was harder
than it’s ever been before, until eventually I realized I wasn’t ready to pack
it in yet.

This happens to a
lot of writers – we’re the introspective type, which is prone to depression.
You can be tootling along one day, happy and carefree, then – BAM! Those black
clouds come rolling back in with no warning.

Be kind to
yourself. It’s okay to be depressed. In fact, fighting it can make it worse.
Sometimes all you can do is ride it out and wait for your muse to return.

And
finally for the most important question! What kind of dachshund is the BEST
kind of dachshund!

How did you know my family had
dachshunds when I was growing up? I remember Suzy. She was a miniature red
short-hair with the most soulful eyes.

With college graduation behind them, Seth Thompson
and Bilal al-Mansoori enjoy their last carefree summer. But the perfect future
Seth’s envisioned since high school—moving to New York to pursue a career as an
artist—doesn’t appeal to city-phobic Bilal. A job offer allowing Bilal to
remain in upstate New York drives a wedge between them, and Seth’s family’s
well-meaning interference doesn’t help at all.

A trip to the UK for Bilal’s sister’s wedding
offers a chance to get back on the same page. But their holiday is abruptly cut
short when the unthinkable happens…

And Seth faces the very real possibility that he
may never see the man he loves alive again.

Excerpt:

Bilal
was sitting up in bed with his laptop when I came in. When he saw the tray, he
set the laptop on the floor. “That smellswonderful.
Bring it here.”

“Yes,sir.” I set the tray on the
nightstand and poured us some, then handed Bilal his mug before dropping my
robe and climbing in bed with my own. The first sip was dark roast heaven, the
rich, smoky taste lingering on my tongue. “I think this is the same kind Mom
served at Thanksgiving.”

The
yummy-like-ice-cream noises he was making told me I didn’t need to ask if he
liked it. His toe-curling kiss confirmed it. “Thank you for crawling out of our
nice, warm bed to make me this nectar of the gods.”

I
laughed. “Well, I wanted some, too.”

He
kissed me again, slowly and thoroughly exploring my mouth, tongues entwining
while every single drop of blood in my body raced to my groin. “What’s this?”
Bilal flipped back the covers to reveal my rising boner. It tented the front of
my sweats, the swollen pink crown poking over the waistband. Bilal reached
underneath to take me in hand and started stroking me.

Holyshit, he’d gotten really good
at this. His confident grip—not too gentle, but not strangling my dick,
either—had me on the ropes in seconds, panting and tossing my head…

Then
something warm and wet splashed my belly.

It
sure as hell wasn’t me. I’d never come. especially with Bilal, without feeling
it in every cell, every fucking molecule…

The
culprit? Bilal’s mug tipping in his hand, getting ready to drip more coffee on
me.

“E-ease
up a minute, okay?” I puffed. He gave me aWTF?look, but did what I asked. I set his
mug on the tray, then kissed him and coaxed him on top of me, to straddle my
hips. “Sorry,” I whispered, “but bathing in hot coffee’s not one of my kinks.”

“Oh,
sorry. I didn’t realize…” he said. He started to pull back, but instead I
pulled him down to me, our pulsing cocks trapped between us. Grinning, I flexed
my hips, rubbing my coffee-spattered belly on his, my skin prickling from the
scratchy feel of his dark, coarse treasure trail. “Shall I lick it off?” he
teased.

I
wrapped my legs around him and pulled him in closer, his stiffening dick
grazing mine. “I’d rather do something different this time.”

Another
flex of my hips, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “I-Is this…one of
your kinks?” he asked, his voice a rough, desperate thread of sound.

“You’remy kink. I want every fucking part of
you… Your cock, your ass… Your skin, your hair…” Then I remembered the promise
I’d made him last night. I caressed his cheek, my palm tingling from the slow,
pulsing drumbeat of blood under his warm skin. I carded my fingers through his
hair, making sure to stay close to the scalp, and tightened my grip around a handful
of thick, heavy strands.

Then
I pulled his head back, smiling at his sharp, startled gasp.

“You
like that, huh?” Well,duh—his
dick had gone rock-hard. I grinned. “Looks like you’ve got a kink or two
yourself.”

“W-will
you stop teasing and f-fuck me now?Please?”

A minute ago, I’d almost rendered him speechless, and now I’ve got
him begging? This is gonna begood.

“Want
to come in my mouth?” I whispered, punctuating it with another tug on his hair.
His breath hitched, shuddering in his chest. Could I make him come like this,
from just talking dirty and pulling his hair? “Or shall I jerk you off, nice
and slow?”

“I-I
want to do it therealway.” He looked down at me, heat
glowing in those dark eyes. Then he licked his moist, full lips, and it took
everything I had not to thrust my tongue in his mouth. “With your cock inside
me.”

God, not this again. How many times do I have to repeat it?

“There’s
more to sex than penetration,” I said gently, letting go of his hair so I could
caress his cheek again. “Whichever way we want to do it is the real way.”

“I
thought anal was the way most gay men do it.” His face flushed pinker.

“How
many months have we been together? And we still haven’t done it. I never got
the impression you were unsatisfied.”

“I’mnot, I just…” He rolled off me
and sat up. “What’s wrong with wanting to try it? You have, haven’t you?”

I
nodded and sat up too. “Yeah. But my first time wasn’t all that enjoyable.”

“Why
not?”

I’d
pushed that memory to the far corners of my mind, but I’d never really
forgotten. Times like this, it all roared back like it’d happened last week.
“I, uh, met this guy at a frat party during sophomore year. We downed a few
beers while we hung out, and it was pretty clear we had chemistry…” I cleared
my throat. Why was this making me nervous? I wasn’t ashamed, but I wasn’t
exactly proud of throwing away my first time on a one-night stand, either. “We
found an empty bedroom upstairs. He pushed me down on the bed and blew me. I
figured he’d want the same, but then he flipped me over and started kissing
down my spine. It felt incredible, especially when he got around to rimming me,
so… When he asked if he could fuck me, I said yes.”

Bilal’s
eyes widened. “But you didn’t like it?”

“I
shouldn’t have tried it while I…whilewewere both drunk. It hurt alot.” I inhaled sharply. “He
had a lubed condom, but my ass needed more prep than that. He wasn’t a jerk
about it, though. Once he realized he was hurting me, he stopped.”

“I
want to,” I said softly, “I do. But I don’t want to hurt you. Especially not
like that.”

“You
won’t,” he murmured, then kissed me again. We sank into the rumpled covers, our
flagging erections springing back to life.

I
got him to straddle my hips again, and—“Wait a minute,” I said, riffling
through the messy nightstand drawer until I found a bottle of water-based lube.
I squirted some on my hand, wrapped my slick palm around both our cocks and
started stroking.

“D-Don’t
stop this time,” he panted. “I-I need to come…”

His
rampant need fanned mine higher. I stroked harder, faster, his breath labored,
a soft flush blooming across his chest. I loved him like this, demanding, lost
in desire, a long way from the closeted, inexperienced guy I’d taken to bed a
few short months ago.

He
hung in there longer than I expected, but when he gripped my shoulders, I knew
he was close. So close, all I did was squeeze the hot, sticky tip of his cock
while rubbing my thumb over that sensitive spot on the underside…

And
he let out a startled yell, shooting all over my belly and chest.

He
didn’t roll off me this time, though after a few minutes his slim, one hundred
fifty pound frame started to feel like a dead weight. He still had his hands on
my shoulders. Now that I wasn’t focused on getting him off, I could feel his
nails digging in.

“Could
you, um, not do that?” I rasped.

“Sorry.”
Now he rolled off, eyebrows arching when he saw I hadn’t come yet. “Give me a
couple minutes, and I’ll take care of you.”

My
cock throbbed, echoing in the blood between my ears. “Maybe I should just
finish myself off.”

“Don’t
you dare,” Bilal growled, batting my hand away. “That’smine.”

I
coughed up a laugh. “Someone’s getting possessive. Not to mention bossy.”

“And
someone else is far too fond of complaining.” He leaned in for a kiss, his
soft, wet tongue flicking and teasing mine. “Do you want to come in my mouth?”

“J-Jesus,”
I breathed. “I think my dick just got twice as hard.”

“I’ll
take that as an affirmative.” A mischievous glint dancing in his eyes—oh
God, I’m in for it now—he scooted down and sucked the tip of my cock
between his lips.

He’d
gotten good at this too. He’d learned how to grip my cock at the root to delay
orgasm—and, like he’d read my mind, that’s exactly what he did now. The
pressure of his supple, talented fingers held me suspended between agony and
bliss while he sucked and swallowed my dick all the way down.

“Y-You
deserve a g-gold medal for this…” My lips formed the words, but I didn’t hear
them. My voice had shorted out, except for the incoherent moans clogging my
throat.

The
air had gone thin and hot. I choked it down, Bilal’s name a threadbare chant on
my lips, until at last I cracked and split open, splintering into a million
tiny shards.

I hope it sells a million copies and puts me on the NYT best seller list. Or is that aiming too high? :)

Also
by Cat Grant

Power Play: Resistance (with
Rachel Haimowitz)

Priceless (Irresistible
Attraction #1)

Power Play: Awakening (with
Rachel Haimowitz)

Doubtless (Irresistible
Attraction #2)

By Chance (Courtland
Chronicles #1)

Fearless (Irresistible
Attraction #3)

Strictly Business (Courtland
Chroncles #2)

Complications (Courtland
Chronicles #3)

The Arrangement (Courtland
Chronicles #4)

Flawless (Irresistible
Attraction #4)

Triad (Courtland Chronicles
#5)

The Only One Who Knows (with
LA Witt)

Habañera

The Only One Who Matters
(with LA Witt)

Black Dog (Bannon’s Gym #1)

Guarded (with LA Witt)

Breaking Free

Takedown (Bannon’s Gym #2)

In From the Cold: A Courtland
Novella

The Only One Who Cares (in
the anthologyUnconditional
Surrender)

Icon Men

A Year in the Life: A
Courtland Novel (Courtlands: The Next Generation)

Tap Out (Bannon’s Gym #3)

Rites of Passage: A Courtland
Novel (Courtlands: The Next Generation)

Buy the book:

Meet the author:

Two-time
EPIC Award winner Cat Grant lives by the ocean in beautiful Monterey,
California with one persnickety feline and way too many books and DVDs. You can
usually find her listening to Dan Savage's podcast, hiding behind her couch
while The Walking Dead's on, or - most likely - writing while listening (and
singing along - badly!) to Verdi or Wagner on her earbuds.

Contemporaries
get her creative juices flowing - featuring alpha male Marines and Navy SEALs,
MMA fighters, hot musicians (rock stars and classical violinists), a transgender
dominatrix (in BREAKING FREE, winner of the 2014 Rainbow Award for LGBT
erotica), and a multi-book series spanning thirty years, two generations and
three genres (menage, m/m and new adult).

Coming
later this year/early next year: another Bannon's Gym novel (more hot MMA
fighters!) and a possible departure from my strict diet of contemporaries - a
journey across a future dystopian/post-apocalyptic America featuring an
interracial lead couple (one of whom is military). Expect some Walking Dead-type
riffs, though I don't think I'll add zombies to the mix. Humans are a lot
scarier.

Don't Miss a Single Interview or Giveaway!

Meet the Hostess!

Raine O'Tierney is an M/M romance author who loves celebrating other authors, asking probing questions about dachshunds, and generally supporting the creative process! Plus she thinks hats are worth throwing a party over!